Friday, October 26, 2007

What to read next

Sometimes in our busy lives we just don't have the luxury of time to sit and enjoy a couple of hours of pure reading pleasure. If you only have a few spare minutes, try a short story.

Here is a highly entertaining collection that caters both to a love of the mystery and an affection for the glitter of Hollywood. Hollywood and Crime: Original Crime Stories Set During the History Of Hollywood features stories by some of today's best crime writers and, one way or another, everything intersects at Hollywood and Vine.

Tinsel town from the 1930s to the present day is the focus of the short stories. Michael Connelly's "Suicide Run" finds Harry Bosch visiting a photographer at the Hollywood & Vine Studios. Lee Goldberg has a great deal of fun with "Jack Webb's Star." Max Allan Collins and Matthew V. Clemens bring back The Three Stooges' Moe Howard to investigate the 1937 death of mentor Ted Healey.

This anthology has stories penned by some of the local mystery authors who have visited the Burbank Public Library, such as Lee Goldberg, Gary Phillips, and Robert S. Levinson, who wrote a snappy story set in 1959 when the Oscars were held at the Pantages Theatre and death waited in the wings.